


Hurricane

by Shampain



Category: Frozen (2013), Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Anna is quite intelligent, Arendelle, Diaval is quite annoyed, F/M, Gen, Hans is quite cursed, Post-Canon, The Southern Isles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:45:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shampain/pseuds/Shampain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her sister unfroze her heart, Anna has found herself with a chilling talent of her own: she can hear, feel, even taste magic. So when something seems <i>off</i> during her diplomatic visit to the Southern Isles, Anna is wary. But of all dangers, the ones hidden in plain sight are the most frightening.</p><p>Though he has been spared the executioner, Hans has spent the last year of his life unable to believe he is alive. The world is a blur, his mind in a fog - that is, until a visit from a strange crow brings clarity back to his life. However, it also brings chaos.</p><p>For many years Diaval has guarded the Moors at the side of its protector and his mate, Maleficent. But when Maleficent awakens from a dream of warning, he flies past the wall of thorns in search of his last living godchild. Unfortunately, the token that is meant to lead him straight to the boy has found its way to another owner, and if Diaval wants to find his godson, he is going to have to make sure a certain red-headed princess gets out of the Southern Isles alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

_Welcome to the inner workings of my mind_  
_So dark and foul I can't disguise_  
_Nights like this_  
_I become afraid_  
_Of the darkness in my heart_  
_Hurricane_

( _Hurricane_ , MS MR)

 

-

 

Maleficent woke.  
  
Around her the Moors hummed with energy. Sometimes they were so loud even a normal human could pick up on it, feel the prickle of magic on their skin, breath in something that sparked their insides. This happened most often in spring; but it was early summer now and the Moors had begun to fall into that pleasant, sleepy rhythm.  
  
It reminded her of the time when she was a child, before Aurora came. Ever since they had parted with the human kingdom, Maleficent felt like she was moving back in time. There was an empty spot in the Moors, now, a spot which by rights ought to be occupied by a laughing, golden-haired child; Maleficent’s eyes often trailed along pathways, rivulets in the rivers, and imagined she could see her godchild playing with the fair folk, bringing the bright happiness which was so very human to the shadows of even the deepest parts of the woods. But the last godchild had left, and Maleficent and her mate were alone.  
  
Until the dream.  
  
Maleficent shook her great feathered wings as she roused herself. The tree was empty, save for herself and bunches among bunches of thick green leaves. She stretched forward, placing two long-fingered hands upon the thinner boughs of the branches, leaning forward, and whistling.  
  
“Diaval,” she sang into the wind, her voice lilting. He told her such a call was sweeter, more enticing than any birdsong he had ever imagined; and when she called thus, he always heard. “Diaval, Diaval.”  
  
He was probably out gathering berries and nuts to break their fast. She must have slept deeply for her not to have noticed himself creeping out from beneath her wings, and taking to the wind.  
  
She relaxed back into the boughs of the tree, nestling against the bark. She thought of her dream, and it unsettled her. She felt an itch on her wing.  
  
Diaval came to her after a few long, lazy moments. The crow alighted as a man, the branch swaying underneath his weight before he lightly leapt down to join her in the crux.  
  
He had blackberry juice on his fingertips, but he had clearly left behind whatever he had gathered in order to respond to her call.  
  
“My lady,” he said, and she took his hand and kissed the blackberries from his fingers, and drew him down to her. “Surely,” he continued, as her wings folded about them, letting only a few stray beams of sunlight in, “you have something to say.”  
  
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” she said.  
  
“You are not so mysterious as you think,” he said, and before she could pretend to protest such a statement, he began combing his fingers through her feathers. “Tell me.”  
  
“I dreamt of Aurora,” Maleficent murmured.  
  
“That should be a good dream,” he remarked, in a tone that clearly said he was starting to suspect it wasn’t.  
  
“It was,” she sighed, and the tree seemed to sigh around them. “I dreamt of her when she was just a girl, a newly crowned queen. The way she walked in the stream with her dress hiked up around her knees, she slipped and cut her toe on a rock. Do you remember that day?”  
  
“Yes,” Diaval’s voice was soft. “I packed it with leaves and red mud, and braided flowers in her hair. She asked if I would, one day, consent to her marriage to a good man.”  
  
“You were more of a father to her than anyone else in the world,” Maleficent agreed. “Your opinion meant much to her.”  
  
“And yours, too.”  
  
“Phillip was a good man,” Maleficent murmured. “They were the best of their families, those two. Gold sifted from the mud. Their line should have been long, and beloved.”  
  
“None of that was your fault.” He carded his fingers, now, into her hair. She was looking straight at him, into his dark, intelligent eyes. “Tell me more of the dream. There is a dark thought hanging in your mind, still.”  
  
Maleficent laid her forehead against her mate’s. “She cut her foot, and blood ran down, down the stream,” she said. “More than could be possible. And it made shapes in the water, and they tangled and fought. So she laid down and let herself be swept downstream. I flew after her. But the stream turned into a pool I had never seen before, and I found a baby playing in the shallows. What a beautiful boy. And I picked him up and held him to me, and I took him deep into the forest, and deep into the snow, until he was cold to the touch.”  
  
Diaval laid his hand upon her cheek. His expression was serious, none of his beloved playfulness lurking in the corners of his face. “And you plucked a feather from your wings,” he said. “And laid it upon his breast. And you buried him in the snow, until a guardian might fetch him, care for him, perhaps bring him home.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And now what would you have me do?”  
  
Maleficent’s wings fluttered, slightly, and that spot on her right wing, where she had torn off the feather herself, tingled with a maddening pain. She had always known he was safe, protected by a pure and loving heart; but as she woke this morning, she was not so sure. Shadows flickered at the corners of her thoughts. “You must find our godson,” she said. “Before someone else does.”


	2. southern hospitality

Civility often frightened Anna.

She had been raised in a palace, yes; but the sense of differentiation between herself and other people had never really been there. Everyone was welcome in her palace, her home. She had never been aware there were societal stepping stones, nor that she even walked upon them.

Nowhere was this more obvious for her than in the Southern Isles. As the youngest princess second in line to her country’s throne, and also an important individual snubbed by the Southern Isles royalty, it was expected she would leave on a diplomatic visit and allow their future allies to make things right. That meant society, and civility.

Now, Anna was raised to be mindful and polite – a bit brash sometimes, but that was to be expected from a girl orphaned during her formative teenage years. But here, being civil took on a whole new meaning. It was a cage, and she found it hard to breathe.

There she was, sitting down to tea with the Queen. She was a woman whose son had coldly left Anna to die, who had wielded a sword against her sister Elsa. Anna had a hard time remembering that and looking at the older woman, who was offering her a slice of strawberry cake.

Queen Ferris didn’t look like she had mothered thirteen sons. Not that, you know, Anna thought mothers looked particularly old or anything. But the Queen looked like she was in the middle of her thirties; if Anna hadn’t known any better, she’d have sworn the Queen looked only ten years older than Hans, who was her youngest child. It was possible Queen Ferris was the second or even third wife of the king, which would explain her appearance, but Anna didn’t remember reading anything about that in her research before arriving.

“It’s so nice to have a woman around,” Ferris was saying, delicately stirring her tea. All around them, the various lesser noblewomen made flutters of agreement (which Anna didn’t understand; surely they were all woman enough for each other?). “With thirteen sons, one really does miss a touch of the feminine around the place.”

“But you have so many ladies of the court,” Anna reasoned, smiling sweetly as she had been told to do by her advisors, bowing her head courteously to the women around them. “This is a crowd to me, after how long the gates of Arendelle had been shut!”

“Sweet girl,” Ferris chuckled. “You’re quite right, of course. But I so rarely have a chance to spend time with them. Your visit gives me an excuse to invite more noble women to court, and to take a break from strong-arming my sons.”

_You don’t seem to strong-arm them enough_ , Anna thought mutinously. But she laughed prettily and sipped her tea. She was getting good at this. She had been there for two weeks and had yet to see Hans, though she knew he was around. Living as the lowliest of the low servants, lower than scum. His family laughed when they talked about it.

She thought that would please her. But actually it made Anna feel a little sick, and a little scared.

  
  


In her guest apartments, she could breathe again. She sat and went over the daily schedule updates with her escort, who along with a dozen other retainers had accompanied her all the way from Arendelle. It was to be a long dinner in the evening, as usual, where Anna would suffer the rest of the royal family o ver delicacies shipped from far and wide.

She didn’t mind the Queen, but her husband and sons were another matter entirely. Of course, Anna had arrived in the midst of gossip so thick it was like a cloud around her. While the Southern Isles were, officially, very ashamed of what their youngest prince had done, in private they found the whole debacle rather amusing. 

Elsa and Anna had prepared for this, however. Very few knew the whole story of the coronation ball – only that Anna had tried to accept an engagement with a foreign prince, and Elsa had demanded to see proof of his credentials. Anna had taken it as an insult against her betrothed, arguing fiercely, and this had upset Elsa to the point of her powers creating winter in the middle of summer. 

So the story they spun was still one of lies and deceit on Hans’ end, but instead of Anna being wooed by his charms and attention, she had been duped into thinking he was more important than he was. Naturally, if Hans had presented himself as a viable political match, Anna would logically want to pursue the possibility of strengthening Arendelle’s somewhat weak presence in the international trade market. The spat between Anna and Elsa had been a disagreement of the political validity of the match between two stubborn royals, not emotional sisters.

Of course, when arriving at the Southern Isles nearly a year later, Anna was unsurprised to discover that Hans’ older brothers treated her like a simpleton who had been romanced by their youngest and was therefore embarrassed beyond reproach. Upon first sitting down to dine with the King, Queen, and princes, however, Anna had been like a soldier going into battle.

“Charm runs in the family,” said the prince closest to Hans in age, with a lopsided grin. Anna remembered Hans’ charm, his sweetness and vulnerability and strength, and as far as she could see, it wasn’t something that his older brothers had picked up on. 

“I wonder what else runs in the family?” Anna had asked, her tone innocent, but her eyes calculating. She fluttered her eyelashes over her wine goblet, but her stare was arch. Someone down the table coughed into their own drink, and the prince flushed angrily, but said nothing.

Anna knew each prince by name, knew when they were born, understood their backgrounds and monitored them for strengths and weaknesses. Elsa had demanded such study and memorization before allowing Anna to leave on the journey. However, Anna pretended to never remember any of their names until a few days ago; now she called them by the wrong names, just to be obnoxious. They, of course, corrected her with a false smile and gritted teeth every time.

But beyond the royals, beyond smil ing sweetly and curtseying politely to the queen, beyond enduring endless teas and walks in the garden, there was something else. Something under the surface of the Southern Isles, hiding in plain sight. She could feel it, like an invisible film of sweat, a buzzing in her ears when she tried to sleep at night.

She knew what it was, though. She never would have noticed it before Elsa revealed her powers, of course, because it was tied to Elsa in so many ways. 

Anna didn’t realize what was happening until a month after coronation day.

At first there were other things to focus on. After years apart, Anna was once again thick as thieves with her sister, and it was a joyous occasion. Elsa was unprepared to rule alone, and Anna was dedicated to helping her sister become the greatest queen their country had ever seen. In her youth she had been a great reader, and so had Elsa – Anna remembered with a pang the years in isolation, only knowing what her sister was doing by the books missing from the library. Well, now they combined their knowledge – history, foreign culture, travel, languages, court manners.

Browsing the library, though, Anna could sense something beyond the norm. Instead of the taste of dust on her tongue, the smell of old books, the feel of leather and paper, the sound of her own breath, the titles glistening  o n the spines – another sense made itself known. 

So when Elsa retired for the night Anna crept into the library, climbed up to the tallest bookcases, and found books on magic. She knew they were there, could sense their presence, like a distant singing, a whisper, a vibration in the earth. For generations the books had been hidden and untouched, and now Anna could find them; for ever since her heart had turned to ice and thawed again, she could smell and taste and feel magic all around her. 

The books drew Anna to them, and she rifled through their pages eagerly, hungry for knowledge. Elsa, Anna vowed, would not be alone in understanding her powers. They could not rely on the small bits of cryptic wisdom the rock trolls gave them – Anna would need to step up. She could only read at night, though, without Elsa knowing, because Anna knew her sister would just disapprove.

Being in the Southern Isles meant she had ample privacy to study, but of course she could not lug the entire library with her, so she had to choose wisely. She had brought a single book. It didn’t have a title; it was a crackly old tome, but when she opened it drawings came to life and the words unveiled stories of far off sorceresses, fairy kings, elvenfolk. No matter how hard she tried, though, she could not read the whole book; and sometimes when she opened it to a page she swore she had read before, an entirely new story unveiled itself before her eyes.

Her retinue dismissed for the evening until dinner, Anna went into her rooms to dig the book out from her travelling trunk, beneath the many dresses, riding habits, and suits she had brought with her.

But strangely the book blurred before her eyes. She shook her head tiredly, set it aside. Not tonight then. If only she had access to the library here – but whether or not there were any books of note, she was there on a diplomatic visit, not to study.

The sound of waves, the scent of the ocean, drifted in through a window. The Southern Isles was such a  wild but beautiful place. Again, it was strange to compare the beauty of the kingdom to the strangeness of its royal family. She sighed, wishing she could share it with Kristoff. Her hand went instinctively to her throat, feeling the chain where the necklace he had given her hung.

She may as well lay down and rest before dinner, then. She was certain that was how they did things, here; such early breakfasts and late dinners! At home, when the days grew long in the summer, Elsa went to bed while the sun was still in the sky. Here, they waited until the sky grew dark, as if they needed permission from the sun.

She unhooked  her heavy dress, hanging it up by the dressing screen, and lay down in her chemise and bloomers atop the covers. She closed her eyes, listening to the caw of far off gulls.

She dreamed of a forest, dark and buzzing. It hummed the same way the air hummed when Anna was around Elsa, but it felt different. Elsa was a breath of wintry air, but this place reminded her of berries and moss, clear streams and autumn rot. She walked, her way lit by small blue mushrooms glowing amid the trees, the moss a luminescent green. She felt a tingle against the back of her neck, like breath.

And the sound of wings…

Caw, caw, the gulls cried, out above the waves.

“Caw,” croaked into her ear. Anna woke with a start.

There was a flutter, a blur of black; she would have shrieked if her shock had lasted long enough for it. A bird settled on the headboard of her bed. It cawed again, more softly this time. Anna blinked and looked at it, and then to the open window, where it must have flown in.

“Um,” Anna said. “Hi.”

The bird cocked its head.

It was black, feathers slightly ruffled. It hopped about slightly on the headboard, its claws scratching against the wood. “Are you a raven or a crow?” she wondered aloud, quite fascinated that a wild thing had come so close to her and did not seem bent on mayhem. It had to be wild; from what she knew, the Southern Isles used its infamous blue pigeons to carry messages, not ravens or the like.

It cawed again. Well, more like  _craw, craw_ . “Crow?” she hazarded. She squeaked as it leapt off the headboard and fell towards her; she lifted her arms up and squeezed her eyes shut, illogically wondering if it was going to attack her hair, but then she felt its gentle weight on her knee.

She opened her eyes; the crow was looking at her like she was crazy.

“I’m not crazy,” she said, immediately. “You’re the one acting like a crazy bird, flying in here, being weird… I don’t know how to deal with birds. I only know about the hunting hawks and I was never, you know, someone who liked to put little hoods on birds… I don’t know. Are you someone’s pet?”

This time, its caw sounded like a cackle of laughter.

She reached out and gently stroked its neck.

Ten minutes later, Anna was walking around her quarters, the crow sitting on her shoulder. “I hope you’re not a magical spy,” she was saying, aloud. “I’ve heard of those. Sorceresses enchanting creatures to do their bidding. There’s an old legend, in the forests of the north, past our mountains… about a Queen who was once turned into a bear…” she felt its sharp little beak poking into her hair, by her ear, and she giggled.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I can bring you food. I mean. As long as you’re not a magic spy.”

The crow pecked at her neck; it took her a minute to realize it was pecking at the chain of her necklace. In fact- “Is this why you woke me?” she asked, remembering, now, the sensation of a sharp point at her shoulder, breath – feathers? – on her neck. The bird must have been pecking at it, had cawed when she had not woken. 

She’d heard crows liked things that flashed and shone. “Only the chain is shiny,” she explained, lifting it up so the necklace cleared where it had been tucked into her chemise. “It used to be on a leather chord but that wasn’t really royal – we switched to the chain – it’s a feather, see?”

The crow croaked excitedly, launching off her shoulder, flapping once around the room, then veering out the window. Anna stared after it, confused.

“Weird,” she said. She walked over and closed the window. The angle of the sun told her she ought to put on another gown; she would be summoned to dinner soon.

-

He knew Anna was here. He knew the moment her foot touched the soil of the Southern Isles.

Her presence was like a torment to him, but it was only one of many. He was parched of thirst, no matter how much he drank. His skin burned, but looked as pale and pristine as ever. And he was weak, always weak; no sleep or food restored him.

The heat, the sweat, the earth; he had to focus on the world around him to try to think straight in the midst of it all. He was barely aware of what was going on, other than the endless grind of tasks. If the servants spit on him or kicked him, he often noticed many minutes after the fact. He had been forced to go to work in his naval uniform, to shame him, but one set of clothes was the same as any other, and he was too busy, too lost, to feel shame. 

Hans slept, woke, lived in a blur. He wondered if his family or the servants, or both, were putting drugs in his food. But then his mind scraped back in time, further into his childhood, and he knew that was the most innocent of assumptions he could make about his family.

Anna, though. She buzzed at the edge of his consciousness. He pained to meet her, but prayed to any gods that might be listening that he may never cross her path again.

  
  


In his dreams he was playing by the fire, sitting on the ground next to his mother’s chair. She hummed, a sickly sweet tune, working on embroidery. A glint of something shiny caught his eye, and Hans stared deep into the fire. He saw that face,  again .  Skin pale, like snow.  Lips red as blood.

He woke in the night, drenched in sweat. He watched a small black beetle innocently trundling its way across the back of his hand, then onto the sacks of straw he was using as a mattress. It disappeared into the cracks of the stable wall, on its merry way.

A sleek black bird cawed down at him, from the rafters. He stared blearily up at it, wondering what it was doing there. It fluttered down to him and landed on his knee.

Air, cold and clear, flooded his lungs. His vision sharpened, the quaking in his muscles stopped. He sat straight up and stared at the crow, marveling at it, feeling fear and joy and curiosity and uncertainty racing through him, his heart stuttering quick and fast.

The bird did not caw again, but took flight, winging itself away. Hans laid back down, his breathing calming. He slept deeply, for the first time in a year.

-

A scratching at her window in the morning alerted Anna that her winged visitor was back. She opened the shutters, giving an arch look at the bird. It hopped up onto her shoulder and pecked her skull. “Ow!” she exclaimed. She swore it was laughing at her again.

“I have to go,” she said, tilting her shoulder oddly to the side as she stood next to her vanity table. Thankfully, the bird took the hint, hopping onto the mirror frame. “Don’t… black magic anything,” she said. “And I’ll bring you back a scone or something.”

Breakfast was a small affair, again with the queen and some court ladies, but it was not a fancy to-do like supper or even the afternoon tea. That made food theft difficult, but Anna was up to the task. Years of sneaking into the palace kitchens had made Anna a master of smuggling food to her room. Growing older and wearing dresses with fuller skirts made the practice even easier. When she returned, she found the crow sitting on a pillow, which she definitely had not left on the chaise lounge before she left. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, suspiciously. It had appeared to be sleeping when she entered, but then it hopped up onto the back of the lounge when she approached, ruffling its wings. She picked up the pillow, and below it nestled her necklace from Kristoff, the feather somewhat rumpled and squished. She had decided against wearing it that morning, instead putting on a simple sapphire necklace. It was the style to show off jewelry, and she could not flaunt the necklace Kristoff gave her, and had to leave it in her room every now and then.

“Did you hide it?” she asked, curiously. It gave her an imperious look; she was overcome with the odd urge to curtsey.

She looked down at the necklace, picked it up. The chain slid through her fingers, the feather nestled in her palm. Looking at it she saw all the many shades of brown and grey, flecks of silver, even a tinge of green. It was truly beautiful. She put it on, where it nestled below the sapphire.

She pulled out the blueberry scone she had brought with her from breakfast, and placed it on her writing desk. She watched  the bird peck at it , feeling suddenly solemn for a moment. At breakfast, the Queen had mentioned visiting the harbo u r town. For some reason, Anna was hesitant.

“I had a dream last night, crow,” she said. She reached out and stroked its soft, sleek feathers. “I was in a nursery. It was empty and dark. I mean – it was nighttime, and there was no baby, so it was empty. There was a pretty dress though, blue. I wonder if that means I’m starting to think about having children? I hope I have a girl. Girls make more sense.”

The crow cawed in agreement (she thought so, anyway).

“No peeking,” she said, walking behind her dressing screen. A walking dress, she thought, would be a good choice for her visit to the harbour. The queen said they would leave at noon, and end with a late tea on the dock at one of their oldest establishments. The crow, she noted, did not fly behind the screen to watch her dress. She was glad for its decorum.

Stuffed inside the carriage with the queen and two of her sons  (the twins, Rudi and Runo) , Anna felt the surroundings of the Southern Isles more stifling than ever. She tasted something on her tongue, a burning taste, dry. Her back itched, under her dress. Anna smiled gaily through it, and was glad to disembark from the carriage and out onto the cobbled streets of the city.

The fresh sea air was cool and refreshing, and the citizens of the Isles much more welcoming and wonderful than its nobles. Before long Anna found herself holding a bouquet of purple flowers, and a small girl requested Anna kiss her handmade doll, for luck.

“They are quite fond of you,” Ferris remarked. The princes chuckled, and Anna did not look at them. She knew what they were thinking. _If she’d ended up marrying Hans, she would have found support among the people,_ _but that would never be real power_.

Who cared.

-

When he woke, the world was  cris p again. It reminded him of the eternal winter in Arendelle – the sharpness of ice, a glowing outline against a twilight sky. The dazzling oranges and reds and purples and deep blue hues of the sunset on snow. It never snowed in the Southern Isles – they had two seasons, hot and dry and miserable, and wet and cold and miserable – so he had marveled at it, even when he was trying to stop the populace from starving to death.

It was like that now, and Hans saw colours and edges. The sloping roof of the stables, the blue of the sky. He heard the soft whicker of horses and the grumbling of servants rousing themselves. Taking advantage of his newfound clarity, he shaved, scraping off months of ragged red beard that had only seen an occasional trim in the past year. He bathed thoroughly in buckets of cold seawater, scrubbing his skin with harsh laundry soap until it was red and raw. 

Just the water seemed to clear his head, too. He smelt of salt from the water and lemons from the soap, but there were worse things to smell like (his body odour for the last month, certainly). Hans took a deep breath. He felt alive, but he was also careful. He couldn’t let anyone notice it; they would try to take it from him.

As he set about his tasks he watched for the crow, but saw nothing.

The world was loud, still, but it was not overwhelmingly so. Words formed in the air all around him, and he could listen, and observe. Had the servants always been speaking of Princess Anna,  and in such a manner ? It seemed like all they could talk about, when they weren’t insulting or berating him.

They said many things out of earshot. Some complimented her beauty, others insulted her stupidity. As Hans was currying a horse in its stall, enjoying the sweet smell of hay and grass, the contented swish of the horse’s tail, he listened to two stablehands talking at length about what they would do to the princess should she get lost one night and wander into the servant’s quarters.

The talk, while vicious and vile, was not enough to even make Hans angry, for only fools would try to rape a distinguished guest, as they would face the executioner the next day. The real draw for rape was power, not sex, Hans knew, but there was no greater power than the promise of death. Death trumped all.  As long as logic prevailed  Anna was safe from the rabble, at least.

And in the Southern Isles it was not the noose, nor the axe, nor stoning, that took a guilty life. It was the sea that gripped you tight and never let you go.

Hans was still surprised he had escaped that fate himself. Surely his brothers would have found it entertaining to watch him drown (there were, after all, twelve other brothers to keep on going, so it’s not like the royal lineage was in any danger). But he found being spared from the executioner to be more worrisome than a source of relief. If he had not been disposed of by now it meant that someone, somewhere, still had a use for him.

  
  


That night, the crow arrived again. Hans had not thought it would return, but he had hoped. He had saved half a biscuit from his dinner (which hadn’t been much more than that) to give to the bird. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and Hans knew the proper protocol when dealing with magical beings. 

He’d been around magic most of his life. It terrified him, and so he bowed and scraped and prostrated himself before it, hoping it would pass him by. It hadn’t, but the old knowledge was still there. 

In any case, it was polite to give gifts, meagre as they were.  In the old stories, good manners were sometimes the only saving grace.

The crow perched on Hans’ knee while he sat, cross legged, on the floor of the barn. He fed the bird small pieces of biscuit, and watched the sharp beak snap up the bits of flour and grain from his fingers, never once nipping him.

“Are you on your way Elsewhere, Bird?” Hans asked, politely, not willing to offend this creature. He did not think it was here for him. Hans did not think of himself to be special enough to attract the attention of anything. As far as Hans was concerned he was a victim of chaos, a piece of the landscape caught up in a tornado and nothing more. 

The crow did not respond, but ate up every single crumb of biscuit. It stayed for several moments longer, allowing Hans to stroke its gleaming plumage; then it winged away. And for the second night in a row, Hans slept peacefully.

  
  


The next day dawned brighter than before, until he saw Princess Anna.

The castle was a long, low building, built to withstand the mighty storms of both sea and enemy fleets. That being said, the few balconies it boasted were quite close to ground level. Hans noticed Anna standing upon one in a beautiful sea-blue dress (no doubt a political choice), speaking to Caleb, the first in line to the throne.

Caleb had a wife, and two children. Yet Hans felt his skin crawl. He wondered if Anna felt that same way. He watched her for a moment, the way she leaned against the railing; there was an elegant tilt to her chin, a lightness of her hand on the rail, that reminded him of her sister. Then, in a panic that he might be seen, Hans beat a hasty retreat.

He wished Anna would leave, go back home where it was safe.  She was an innocent and he worried for her.

-

_Dear Elsa,_

_I am having some trouble sleeping, I keep getting strange dreams. I think it’s obvious: I miss you!_

_Despite that, though, I am extending my stay for another week. There is so much to see and do here in any case! I know you miss me too, but you must be patient! The Queen insists on sending you gifts and they are not yet finished, so I volunteered to stay here a little while longer while everything is finished._

_All my love to everyone at home. I’ll see you soon,_

_Your sister,_

_A_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> First things first: this will not be a fuzzy story - I am allowing myself to be as macabre as I wish. This fic is inspired by darker fairy tale renditions, and so there may or may not be mentions of death, murder, rape, incest, insanity, war, addiction, et cetera. I have no solid plans, but I am not going to limit myself if the story takes a certain direction. It may have all of those things, it may have none. Warnings will go up as they occur. 
> 
> On that note, this installment is about 40% complete, by my reckoning, unless it grows much larger than I expect it to, so it should be completed in a timely fashion. While it's my wish to write more, for now the story is going to be contained to Anna's diplomatic visit to the Southern Isles. So characters like Elsa and Kristoff, while mentioned, won't be appearing in it just yet.
> 
> I am using some information gleaned from the novelization _A Frozen Heart_ , but I'm taking a lot of liberties. LIBERTIES YAY. That's what fanfic is all about amirite???  
> OMG this is the longest A/N I've written in ages I think. I'm sorry. BYE FOR NOW.


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